Ambassador Dennis Ross in conversation with Rabbi Spitz at CBI on Sept. 17, 2017 Dear Friends, Tomorrow we gather to mark Yom Kippur, 5778. I look forward to sharing services with you as a time for reflection, connection, and uplift. Below are my sermons from Rosh Hashanah and an editorial by Dennis Ross, who visited…
For this month’s OC Jewish Life Magazine, I reflected on technology and change at Rosh Hoshanah: (Click here to view the original article.) The Head of Change by Rabbi Elie Spitz OUR SMART PHONES are a powerful tool and distract us from the immediate moment. Whether used for good or bad, we are hooked. Consider the results of a recent international survey…
Moses’ sings a swan song, which begins: “Listen heaven! I will speak, Earth! Hear the words of my mouth. My lesson shall drop like rain, my saying shall flow down like the dew, like a downpour on the herb, like a shower on the grass.” (Deuteronomy 32:1-2) A Hasidic master commented that rain is only…
Do you knowingly choose your actions? Some neuroscientists have cast doubt on “free will.” Itzhak Fried, a neurosurgeon and researcher at UCLA and Tel Aviv Medical Center, used implants combined with fMRI (Functional magnetic resonance imaging) to document that there is brain activity for a second and a half before subjects make a conscious decision…
“And it shall be that when you come into the land which the Ever-Present-One your God is giving you as a heritage and you possess and settle in it, you shall take some of the first fruit…” In the Torah, that act of gratitude is coupled with specific words for the pilgrim, words also contained…
Titilation was my initial reaction as a twelve-year old reading this week’s Torah selection, which begins: “When a man goes out to war and sees a beautiful captive and he craves her…” (Deuteronomy 21:10). And yet, the Torah reading responds with rules of restraint: You, the soldier, need to give a captive woman thirty days…